Middle Armenian (), also called Cilician Armenian (although this may be confused to refer to modern dialects), corresponds to the second period of

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

which was spoken and written in between the 12th and 18th centuries. It comes after Grabar (Classical Armenian) and before Ashkharhabar (Modern Armenian). Classical Armenian was predominantly an inflecting and synthetic language, but in Middle Armenian, during the period of Modern Armenian influence, agglutinative and analytical forms influenced the language. In this respect, Middle Armenian is a transition stage from Old Armenian to Modern Armenian (Ashkharhabar). Middle Armenian is notable for being the first written form of Armenian to display Western-type voicing qualities and to have introduced the letters օ and ֆ, which was based on the Greek letters "o" and "φ".

Additions

The letter օ, based on the Greek letter o, was added during this period. It represents the IPA sound (

open-mid back rounded vowel The open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a turned letter ''c'' ...

). Although this is a native phoneme in Armenian, the sound that would usually represent it, ո, was used only in medial and final positions. Initially, ո represents . Therefore, this letter was invented to only be used in initial positions to represent the sound /ↄ/ itself. It is still used today in the

Armenian alphabet The Armenian alphabet (, or , ) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three historical alphabets of the South Caucasu ...

. The letter ֆ, based on the Greek letter φ, was added during this period. It represents the IPA sound (

voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...

), which is not a native phoneme in Armenian. However, it was prevalent in borrowed words, making it necessary to use a letter to write it. It is still used today in the

References

External links

Dictionary of Middle Armenian
(Միջին Հայերենի Բառարան), Ruben Ghazarian, Yerevan, 2009. Armenian languages Languages attested from the 12th century {{Armenia-stub